#this site has so many double standards about stuff | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dyketubbo · 2 years

Note

About your AO3 post, I have a few things I want to get off my chest. I didn't mean for it to get this long, so I'm putting it all here instead of spamming your notes. You don't have to answer this, but please read and consider this.

The existence of fics with certain tags/content doesn't mean the author condones those things in real life, nor do they necessarily equate to real world harm. There's plenty of reasons why people may feel compelled to write about horrible things, whether it's because they're processing trauma, tackling social issues, venting out stress, or, in the case of shipping child characters/celebrities, the writers could be minors themselves utilizing safe and controlled online spaces to explore their sexualities.

There is no way to sort through thousands of fics, read every single one, and properly evaluate the context of that work to filter out and delete the "bad" fics without also taking down fics that many people believe shouldn't be taken down.

AO3 doesn't have any rules on restricting content on the basis of morality for several reasons.

1) Morality is a relative social construct and there's plenty of content with gray areas that gets morally ambiguous. Trying to moderate all that and determining where lines should be drawn exactly could lead to unfair double standards, cultural biases, and unsatisfactory results on both sides of the issue.

2) AO3 was created specifically because of its anti-censorship beliefs. Every other fanfic platform that tried to take down harmful content only resulted in mass purging of people's works without warning or reason. AO3's main goal is to prevent that from happening again.

3) Works with problematic/harmful content never fully went away from those sites either. All it did was make it harder for people to AVOID it, leaving readers with no way to know exactly what they were about to read when they clicked on a story, which, ironically, only lead to greater harm than simply keeping dark fic up and properly tagged.

Which is why AO3 has a tagging system designed to WARN people on what a work contains. If you try to ban content with the tag "rape/non-con" for example, then that means that any future works uploaded with that content will go untagged and with no way to properly warn readers what they are going into. And, that doesn't mean that the author, or AO3 itself, approves of irl rape (if they did, they probably wouldn't feel compelled to add it as a major archival warning in the first place).

Let's say you wanted to go through and delete all rape fics anyway. How would you go about doing that?

What if a story only implies a character was raped off-screen and there's a scene where they briefly talk about their trauma?

Or what if a rape scene is described as a horrific and painful experience? What about a fic about a character who was raped in canon? It would be unfair to writers to take down their fic because they addressed the same heavy topics that's mentioned or explored in canon. And... if one fandom is allowed to write about it, why not others?

There's also no fine line between dark fic written by survivors processing their trauma and people wanting to get off on that kind of stuff. Would you take down a rape fic if the victim mentions feeling pleasure from it, as what may be the case for real victims? Writers don't owe you that information, and trauma survivors deserve to talk about their experiences in a safe and no-judgemental environment, as long as the receiving party consents to it (which they are, because they wouldn't have clicked on that fic otherwise).

The same thing applies to fics with other kinds of disturbing/harmful content as well, be it racism, pedophilia, or RPF fics.

Literature where dark things happen to characters have always existed, and It's agreed that those works should be allowed not because we don't care about morals, but because at the end of the day, the characters and actions within a story are purely fictional and no one is harmed in real life from that work existing. Yes, that's still true even in RPF. The harm to the real people those fics are based off of doesn't come from its existence, but from the constant verbal and sexual harassment of those people from obsessed fans sending them RPF fics or pressuring celebrities to date each other.

As long as a work on AO3 is properly tagged and doesn't break the TOS (and I would advise you read through that thoroughly), then the only thing you can do is ignore it and move on. Or, just stay off AO3 all together.

(Also like... I'm genuinely curious about HOW you intend to moderate fics that use stereotypes of minorities and decide what is okay and what isn't. Because... plenty of canon works have stereotyped characters that people write fanfic of, or maybe a stereotype is used only minimally and that character is otherwise fully fleshed out and non-offensive. How do you sort out the difference between a stereotype and a common/normal trait found in X group of people? What if the writer belongs to that minority and are speaking of experience or are projecting parts of their own personality into that character? How do we decide which stereotypes should be allowed more leniency in fiction than others? Should writers be obligated to give out information on their race/gender/other minority status (or really any vulnerable information about themselves) for their works to be allowed to exist? People complained about racist stereotypes being used in the Pixar movie, Turning Red, despite the fact that the creators included women of color speaking from their own experiences. So... when complaints of stereotyping roll in on a fic, how do you decide its legitimacy? And how do you plan on keeping those rules fair and consistent?)

Sorry for the long tangent. I just want to put out these questions and thoughts and see what you think.

this is.. a fucking Lot, so im going to respond to specific parts that stand out to me

i understand that some fics are simply for the sake of exploring dark themes or tragedy, but there is a line between work that was made to condemn or discuss a subject and work that was made to romanticize and sexualize a subject. also if your coping mechanism is to ship real life people and write about them having sex especially when theyre minors? get a better fucking coping mechanism. "im coping" is not an excuse for being a disgusting human being, minor or not. i also do not think that people should advocate for children publicly exploring their sexuality. ao3 is not a "safe and controlled online space", especially not for minors. adults are able to view these works and that inherently makes it not okay. adults should not be involved in childrens sex lives in any way and encouraging children to breach sexual topics in a public space is fucked up. the only, and i mean only adults that should go over such a topic are parents and teachers teaching sex ed and educating their children on how to say safe. not strangers on the internet. that is how many, many children get groomed.

this just feels like a "if there werent any rules everybody would do fucked up shit!" yes there are issues that can pop up with trying to moderate these spaces, but that does not justify not moderating anything at all. if you can't keep something under control, maybe you aren't the right person to be maintaining a space at all.

if being pro-censorship means not allowing explicit rpf of minors, then i'm all fucking for it. purge that shit.

again, issues can pop up while trying to moderate things, but that does not mean something should not be moderated at all. it's better to try and have to go through the problems that come with people trying to be sneaky than to not try at all.

again, there is a difference between work that explores dark themes in condemnation or for the sake of discussing these themes and work that is made to romanticize or sexualize them. again, many people can tell you the harm that comes with making these sorts of works and how children can get groomed through adults encouraging them to explore sexuality publicly. no it is not true even in rpf, especially when the rpf BREAKS FUCKING BOUNDARIES HELLO?? rpf itself should be condemned because it treats real people like fictional characters and often breaks boundaries to do it!! once again, if your "coping mechanism" is writing about real life children getting raped, Get. A. Better. Coping Mechanism. stop using your problems to excuse being a disgusting piece of shit. multiple creators have expressed extreme discomfort with rpf just existing, even when they can't see it. just because a creator cannot see what you say or do does not mean you should be fucking gross about them anyways.

if your argument implies, in any way, that it is okay for people to write about real life children getting raped or dying or being abused, then your argument is invalid. go fuck yourself and die.

about the "where do you draw the line", get a big team full of diverse people and sensitivity readers who can help draw the line. start off with moderation rather than trying to implement it later on (but, yes also introduce moderation even if its late into the project). dont allow rpf period tbh. the world would be better off if rpf as a concept was purged. have people who are willing to go through fics and tags etc etc. tag wranglers on ao3 exist, its not impossible to start a project with people like that. would it take a lot of work? yes, absolutely. itll most likely take money too, but at least that money will go into actually improving shit. encourage a space where things like romanticizing rape and racism and ableism etc etc are condemned.

the thing is, i think the people who are pro-ao3 are much more.. i dont know how to word it, but youre all way too willing to just give up. instead of trying to make things better or looking inwards to ask yourself if its really worth it to defend shit like this, you decide to just.. lay down. and accept it. and argue endlessly about being anti-censorship and how you should have the right to make work where plural people are villains and nonbinary people are forced to be whichever binary gender is better shipping fodder and autistic people are nothing but children in adult bodies and real life people are just your little playthings to trod all over for the sake of "coping". is it really that hard for you to condemn these things? people like you argue on and on about nuance, how you cant have a solid scale for these things and how moderation creates dissatisfaction on both sides or whatever, but.. you can't see the nuance in saying that lumping together all darkfics under the label of perfectly okay actually causes more harm than good because then instead of having work that allows for genuine discussion of dark themes overall and work that uses dark themes just to shock people and romanticizes them.. you just have works with dark themes all in one big bundle. and i don't think that that's okay, or that that should stay the norm.

i like consuming art with dark themes. i've praised writing that explores themes like underage drug use, abuse, torture, etc. i've made stories with themes of child abandonment, domestic abuse, transphobia, dehumanization, etc. i've often had discussions with others about racism and ableism and the other things that effected us. i've talked about sexual harassment with other survivors, often other children or people who experienced it as children. but.. never has work that romanticized these themes helped me or anyone i've ever known. it only served to make the people i saw worse, or stay stagnant in their belief that they have the right to make others uncomfortable in the name of "anti-harassment", "anti-censorship", and, worse of all, "coping".

i refuse to apologize for believing that ao3 is a fucking cesspool and that the staunch supporters who ignore everything wrong with it in the name of anti-censorship should go to hell.

tl;dr: i don't support making art (whether visual, written, or otherwise) about real life children getting raped nor do i support people who want it to stay on the internet. if you do, go fuck yourself and get the fuck off my blog.

#long post #very long post #angel answers #ao3 #racism tw #rpf tw #rape tw #ask to tag

5 notes · View notes

sirowsky · 3 years

Text

The Flowers Always Know

Description: When a mad scientist uses you as an experiment while you’re on holiday, the Heroics only just manage to save you. And in your recovery you become very close to the leader of the group. (Slow burn)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Language.

Link to Masterlist

Comment: Another day of side-effects where my head really hasn’t been in the game. But a little fun stuff to pass the time has managed to crop up.

So sorry for the tease ending... I blame the headaches.

Chapter 27

The Chef, Greg, had personally brought you extra leftovers during the five weeks you were living in the cell, training and learning about your abilities. He knew about your abnormal energy-consumption, and had become concerned when you never ordered more than a double portion of food, no matter how exhausted you were. So, he’d come to give you the leftovers one evening, and you’d explained that it felt like you’d be stealing from others that might need it, if you ordered six or even eight portions. After that, he’d begun saving all the leftovers every day, and bringing you that for the extra portions you otherwise wouldn’t have ordered.

“I may have to make Greg my Best Man.”

“He’d probably decline. He’s nice, but he does have standards.”

“Ouch…”

“He doesn’t know you, Cujo.”

“Okay, seriously, what is up with that?”

“It’s just an accurate description.”

“I am not a fucking dog.”

“Yes, you are. It’s just that, ordinarily, you’re a puppy. You just have that lovable puppy-face, with the eyes and the grin that can melt the coldest of hearts. And then, you bare your teeth and growl, and you look fucking terrifying.”

“I do?”

“Um – yes. Unequivocally – yes. It’s amazing.”

“Wait… you like my Cujo-quality?”

“I like that you have that side, when you need it. I like that it comes out almost exclusively to protect the things you love. And I have to admit that I like the fact that even the remotest possibility that William actually had tried something, elicited that kind of a response from you.”

“I was a little shocked at how strongly I reacted to that. Just the thought… I would’ve killed him, if he had. Not because you… belong to me. But because you were weak and unable to stop anyone that might have tried. Thank god William’s even more of a puppy than I am.”

“Will is more of a Greyhound.”

“What?”

“Yeah, you know – sleek, effective, streamlined.”

“Okay, let’s just drop the whole dog-topic already.”

“And, just for the record – of course I belong to you. Ass-hat.”

He practically beamed at you.

“Ditto. Mama bear.”

You’d been talking while walking back from lunch, and when you got back to your office, Anita was there. Just standing in the middle of the room, with her signature scowl in full effect.

“Hi, mom. Wow, you’re actually in the office, it must be serious.”

“Fifty noise-complaints in the last hour – is serious.”

You both stopped smiling, and threw a nervous glance at one another, but she just huffed and turned to you.

“Have you had yourself checked out by medical, yet?”

“No… why would I…?”

“Because human beings don’t possess the biological imperative to breed, to the point where their libidos take control of their bodies.”

You had actually checked both your offices for cameras and microphones a good while back, and found nothing. And there weren’t any fucking flowers in your office!

“How the hell do you know that? Seriously… How?”

She just rolled her eyes.

“Get your ass down to medical. Now.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“Whatever it is, I feel fine now, which means they probably wouldn’t be able to detect anything abnormal, so I’m gonna finish my work for the day, and then I’ll go to medical.”

You walked over to your desk as you spoke, and as you sat down, you remembered something.

“And by the way, where you in charge of selecting my substitute while I was gone?”

“Yes. Petra wasn’t ideal.”

“You don’t say. If I’m ever gone for an extended period of time again, no one sets foot in my fucking office. Got it?”

“Did you just try and give me an order, loco?”

“I’m not trying anything. I’m telling you. No one.”

She threw you a kinda skewed smile and then turned around to leave. But as she crossed the threshold she stopped and looked back at you with pure steel in her eyes.

“4pm. If you’re not at medical by then, I’ll drag you there by your ear.”

“Try it. Please.”

She left and you sighed and looked at Marcus, who had sat down on the couch again, one arm draped over the backrest while he’d watched you take on Máma.

“Are you absolutely sure you feel fine? Because I’m all kinds of hot and bothered right now.”

“50 noise-complaints, Marcus. That’s half the damned building.”

“And like I said: fuck ‘em.”

“Please go away so I can think.”

“Only if you promise to call me the moment you feel any amount of craving. I’m serious.”

“You think I want to feel like that again? Of course I’ll call, and you’d better pick up. I don’t care if HQ’s on fire.”

“You have my word, famb.”

“You know, your list of nicknames is getting a bit ridiculously long.”

“Oh, I haven’t even started on the real one’s yet.”

“Real ones?”

“Prometida, esposa, amada, mi corazón…”

“Okay, okay, have as many as you like, jeez.”

“Which one’s your favourite?”

“You already know.”

He got up from the sofa and came over to kiss you before he left. His lips lingered long after the kiss ended.

“Hermosa…”

He was intoxicating. You put a hand up on his chest and pushed him away gently.

“Get out of here, gorgeous. Mama’s got work to do.”

“Oh, that’s mean. You know how I love it when you talk all husky like that.”

“I’ll call you if I need you.”

He walked away looking disappointed, but also kind of expectant, like he was looking forward to getting you back later. You smiled and shook your head after the door closed behind him.

You did get a lot of work done after that, and even if you were still miles behind from catching up to where you’d been 7 weeks ago, it still felt good to have gotten back on track. Especially on what had been possibly the weirdest day of your life. Which was saying something. Your libido stayed calm and behaved for the rest of the workday, but you did see Anita’s point in getting yourself checked over, and so you were planning on going to the med-bay. But at 3:30 you were working on your computer, looking up rare metals for an upcoming build, and you sort of stumbled over a site for wedding-rings. You were just gonna take a quick peak, scrolling through the various options, and getting progressively more worked up as you saw the price-tags. You were just about to leave the page and go back to work, when an ad in the corner popped up.

Wedding-dresses.

Fuck.

You clicked.

“If you thought I was kidding about the ear, you were sorely mistaken.”

You startled at the sound of her voice, and a puff of energy escaped you, sending papers flying everywhere.

“Thanks a lot, Anita. Why don’t you give me a heart-attack while you’re at it?”

“Don’t be so dramatic. It’s not my fault you were so engrossed in that screen you didn’t notice me. What were you looking at, anyway?”

Had half an hour already passed? You just clicked on that ad a second ago… And why was she looking at you like that?

“Just research.”

“Mhm. Let’s go.”

“Alright, just let me get these papers off the floor.”

As expected, since the event seemed to have passed, the medical exam didn’t reveal anything, and Anita seemed unnecessarily peeved about that.

“What are you so upset about? What exactly did you think they’d find?”

“Nothing. Never mind.”

“Never mind, my ass. You all but dragged me to this exam, and now you’re disappointed. So, spill. What’s the deal?”

“I just hoped that maybe… you increased enthusiasm was…”

“Was…?”

“Alright, most women experience increased sensitivity when they’re pregnant. I just wanted to be sure.”

You sort of half froze midway through pulling your pants back on, and your hands involuntarily went to your abdomen.

“Oh… I never even considered…”

“I’m sorry, niña. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“No, I’m not upset. God, I don’t even know what I am.”

You finished dressing and sat down on a chair, letting your head fall into your hands.

“Eight months ago, I was just a designer, going on a fucking vacation. Now, I don’t even know what the hell I am anymore, much less what to do. Every time I think I’m starting to get a handle on things, something else happens and I’m lost again.”

She tapped your leg with her cane, ushering you to look at her.

“What you are, is my son’s fiancé. My granddaughter’s adoptive mother. You’re smart, highly capable and stubborn, kind and caring, but abrasive when the situation requires it. You’re everything you need to be. And that’s all you ever really need to know about yourself.”

You drew a deep breath.

“Do you think he made the right choice? With me?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“Thank you.”

You called Marcus to let him know how the exam had gone, and he was just about to pick up Missy, so since you had your own car you told him you’d race him home. But you decided to stop by Amanda’s house on the way. You wanted to talk to both of them, but her place was closer.

When you walked in at home, Missy was in the living room playing a video-game with Noodles, A Capella and Wild Card. It had been a while since she’d had any friends over, and you smiled when you saw how much fun she was having.

“Hey, Alma! Wanna see me crush these guys for the second time?”

“Any day of the week, angel, but I gotta talk to your dad right now.”

“Okay, suit yourself!”

You laughed and walked into the kitchen to find him opening pizza-boxes and distributing slices onto plates.

“Hey, sweetheart, sorry, this wasn’t planned, they just spontaneously asked if they could come over as I was picking her up.”

“Honey, why are you explaining yourself?”

“I don’t know… it’s just, with the weird day you’ve had and how you seemed a little down after the exam, I thought that maybe you weren’t quite in the mood for a house full of teenagers.”

“No matter how I feel, Missy’s entitled to enjoy herself with her friends. I would never wanna deprive her of that.”

“No, I know. I just worry about you.”

“Yeah, I do too, sometimes. But that’s usually when I remember I have you, and it all feels better.”

He smiled and asked you to help him carry out the food to the living room, and once you’d done that, you sat down at the dinner table to eat yourselves.

“So… I may have googled wedding-dresses today.”

He beamed.

“Really? Did you manage to narrow down any preferences? Don’t give me any specifics, by the way.”

“I did, I think. Or, at least, I found a lot of stuff I didn’t like, so I guess that helps. I don’t know, I feel like I need to see them, touch them, to actually get a sense of what I like.”

He beamed even more.

“I really like the sound of this. I’m sure Amaire would come with you if you asked.”

“Yeah, I kind of already asked them to, this weekend.”

He was fucking radiating joy at that point. He got up and took your hand, leading you to the bedroom and closing the door behind you. Then he reached into his pocket and fished something out. His smile turned just a hint of insecure, as he held up the ring he’d chosen for you. It was gold-plated steel, with a single row of small diamonds sunk into the centre of the band all the way around. A sturdy and solid piece that wouldn’t break or lose its shape. While you admired it, he started trying to explain his choice.

“I know you’re not much of a jewellery-girl, so I figured we’d skip the whole engagement ring plus wedding-band. You can wear it right away if you want and then just take it off before the ceremony, or you can wait and put it on then, either way is fine with me. That is, if you like it? If you don’t, we’ll take it back and you can pick something else. It just felt right as soon as I saw it. You’re not the frail silver band type of person, and I know you’d only get annoyed with a big rock getting in the way and getting caught in stuff. You work with your hands and so I figured something sturdy but elegant. I have a matching one just without the diamonds. Please say something before I pass out from oxygen-depravation…”

“I love it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Really.”

You both beamed.

“Can I put it on you?”

“You better.”

He slipped it on your finger and it fit perfectly. And for the first time it really sunk in that you were gonna marry this man. The love of your life. It felt like a really long time until the kids went home and Missy went to bed, with her headphones on.

“I totally forgot, we need to go bed-shopping, honey.”

“I don’t know, a mattress on the floor might be preferable until we know the extent of your ‘heat-situation’.”

“Mm. Good point. Although, breaking in a new bed is always fun.”

“Hermosa.”

“What?”

“Stop talking and get undressed. I’ve been waiting for this all night.”

Authors’ Note: I love criticism, don’t be shy to let me know if there’s anything you like/don’t like/have questions about.

@blueeyesatnight @farfromjustordinary @allmyspideys @hrk-fic-recs @strawberryperegrine @lucrezia-thoughts @computeringturtle @sarahjkl82-blog

#marcus moreno #marcus moreno x reader #marcus moreno fic #we can be heroes #we can be heroes fic #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal characters

36 notes · View notes

popculturebuffet · 3 years

Text

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1990 Review: Still Possesses Turtle Power After All These Years

Cowabunga all you happy people! I freaking love the Teenage Ninja Turtles. I grew up with it from Turtles in Time, which was my first video game, to the 2003 cartoon, which I covered the first three episodes of last month, and on to present day as I re-read the idw comics after finally reading the original eastman and laird run of mirage, and impatiently waiting for Shredder’s Revenge to come out after a LONG drout of no good TMNT games. I”m a fan of these heroes four, their dynamic as a family, the endless possiblities that come from it’s long history and ablitlity to go anywhere in any genre, and the wonderful goofy shit that happens when you have a franchise about mutant turtles learning ninjitsu from a rat and fighting a dude covered in knife covered samurai armor.

So with me finally covering the guys after almost a year last month and with a new movie set to debut at some point this year, I had the bright idea to revisit the FIRST TMNT movie after way too many years of not watching it. This movie is anear and dear to my heart: When I first started getting into the boys big as a kid with the 2003 cartoon, I badly wanted more turtles. But back then it wasn’t nearly as easy to glom onto some more of the sewer shock pizza kings: Streaming sites with all the cartoons on them weren’t all that accesable, dvd’s were expensive for the 87 cartoon, Mirage wasn’t reprinting the comics in any meaningful way and my local comic shop didn’t have any at all and I could only play the SNES when my brother had it set up on occasion like at our Grandma’s farm.

As you probably guessed though there was one exception: the original 1990 movie, which I got at Walmart for 5 bucks and haven’t let go of since. It was one of my first dvds and is still one of my most precious. Said film hit the spot just right as like my beloved 2003 series, it was a mildly goofy but still fucking cool adaptation that stuck closer to the mirage comics, even more than the 2003 series would, while taking a few queues from the 87 series. This film is as precious to me as the 2003 series and a with a brand new movie coming up, I figured it was the exact right time to dig into this classic: what makes it still good to this day, what’s fun to point and laugh at, and how the heck Jim Henson got involved in this. So join me under the cut as I take a look at my boys first theatrical outing and why I still love watching a turtle.

No One Wanted To Make This: Before we get into the film itself some background. As usual I struggled a bit, but thankfully found some help in the form of this Hollywood Reporter article. It’s a fascinating read worth your time, providing an oral history of the film from the people who worked on it.

The film was the baby of Gary Propper, a surfer dude and road manager for the prop comic Gallagher, aka that guy who used to smash watermelons but now has instead opted to smash what little’s left of his career by being a homophobic douchenozzle. He found an ally in Showtime producer Kim Dawson who’d produced Gallagher’s special. I don’t think there will be more of an 80′s sentence than “Gallagher’s surfer dude agent wanted to make a teenage mutant ninja turtles movie”. Propper was a huge fan of the comics, and with Dawson’s help convinced Laird and Eastman to let them option it to studios.

It may come as a shock to you but the road agent for a homophobic watermelon man and a producer at a niche cable channel wanting to make a movie based on an underground comic book about masked turtles at a time when the two most recent comic book movies were Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and Howard the Duck, did not go well. Every door in Hollywood got slammed in their face, even Fox> Even the eventual backer of the film, Golden Harvest, a hong kong action film studio, took months to convince to actually back the film.

Things did not get easier from there: The films writer Bobby Herbeck had trouble getting a story agreed on because Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s working relationship had deteroiated horribly from the stress so naturally the two could not agree on a damn thing and argued with each other. Peter Laird made a tense siutation even worse by constnatly sniping at Herbeck and feeling he was a “Hollywood outsider infringing on his vision and characters”

Granted the script was apparently not great... but Pete still comes off as a pretnetious ass who views his weird indie comic as THE HIGHEST OF HIGH CALLINGS HOW DARE YOU SOIL IT. And continued to be kind of a prick like this throughout the rest of his time with the property.

Thankfully the film found i’ts voice, vision and director in Steve Barron. Barron was a music video guy who knew the producers and while reluctant, eventually dove into the project rightfully thinking the film would need to be a mix of the mirage comics and 87 cartoon, keeping aprils’ reporter job, the turtles lvoe of pizza and their iconic color coding from the cartoon but adapting several stories from the comics as the backbone of the film. The guys liked barron MUCH better and things ran smoother.

Barron also brought in one of the film’s biggest selling points and it’s most valuable asset: it’s triumphantly awesome Jim Henson costumes. Barron had worked with good old Jim on the music videos for Labyrinth, and while it took some convincing since the comics were violent as hell and that wasn’t Jim’s style, Barron eventually got him on board. This naturally doubled the budget, but given Henson’s costumes STILL hold up today and look better than the cgi used in the platinum dunes films... it was a good call. And this was brand new tech for jim, having to invent tons of new ideas and mechanisms just to make the things work, and said things still were absolute hell on the actors. Jim later ended up not liking the film for being too violent... which I find hilarious given how many muppets got eaten or blowed up real good on his show but regardless, I thank this legendary and wonderful man as without him this film WOULD NOT have worked. The costumes here look great, feel realistic, and you can’t tell the actors were dubbed much less horribly suffering in those suits. Much like Disney Land.

The film would get picked up for distribution by New Line, and despite i’ts weird as hell origins and the long shot it had.. the film was a MASSIVE hit at the box office, owing to a combination of Batman 89 the previous year having proved comic book movies can work for audiences, the cartoon’s runaway sucess, and a massive marketing campaign. The film made it’s mark. So now we know how we got here let’s get into the film itself.

What’s the Story Morning Glory?:

So the story for this one is largely cobbled together from some of the more notable arcs Eastman and Laird did before handing off the book to others full time as the stress of the company and the mounting tension with each other made it near impossible to work together on the book itself.

To Save time i’m just going through what hte movie takes from the comics plot wise now to save me the trouble later:The movie takes elements from the first issue (The Turtles, Splinter and Shredder’s backstories, Shredder being fully human and the main antagonist, Shredder’s design and the final rooftop showdown that results in Shredder’s death), second and third, (April’s apartment over her dad’s old store and the turtles moving in when their home is ransacked and splinter has gone missing), the rapheal micro series (A tounge in cheek way of cashing in on the Mini-Series craze of the 80s, a one shot by modern standards and something that’s tragically been underused as an idea as only TMNT and MLP have used the idea at IDW, Raph meeting casey and their fight with one another), the return of shredder arc (One of the turtles being ambushed and mobbed by the foot and then thrown though a sky light (Leo in the comic and Raph here), the turtles being horribly outnumbered by them, Casey coming ot the rescue and metting the non-raph turtles for the first time, and them being forced to escape when the place goes up in flames), their exile to northampton (April writing in a journal, casey working on a car with one of the guys and one of hte guys looking over hteir injured brother), and finally, their triumphant return which was very loosely adapted as there are no deformed shredder clones and shredder not being dead yet in this version was not brought back by a colony of super science worms.

So as for how this all comes together: Our story takes place in New York: A crimewave is high with muggings mysterious. There are a ton of phantom thefts going around and at most people have been seeing teens responsibile. And the police.. are at about this level of useful:

The only person doing something is April O’Neil, played by Judith Hoag. Hoag is easily the standout of the film, giving us a strong, confident woman with a wonderful sense of humor. She honestly might be my faviorite April O Neil, and given we’ve had some great ones with 2003, 2012 and Rise, that’s not something I say lightly. I honestly wish I’d recognized her in more stuff as she was both on Nashville and the mom in the Halloween Town films, and most recently was on the ScFy show the magicians. She’s a talented lady and i’m glad she’s still goin.

April is a reporter for Channel 3 like the cartoon, though for some weird reason her boss from the cartoon is replaced by Charles Pennigton, played by Jay Patterson, whose currently dealing with his troubled son Danny, played by Micheal Turney. Pennington is horribly useless at both jobs: At work he tries to ease April off calling out Chief Sterns, who refuses to listen to April’s evidence gathered from japanese immigrants that the crimes resemble similar ones in japan in favor of trying to get charles to shut her up. Danny meanwhile is a member of the foot becase his dad thinks shouting out him and talking about him like he’s not there and generally being a dipstick will actually do anything to help him.

I love the concept for the foot here. In addition to being a Ninja Violence Gang as always, they now recruit new members by finding kids without families or with troubled family lives and giving them a sense of family with the foot, and sweeting the bargin with a giant cave filled with arcade machines, a skate ramp and general late 80′s early 90′s kids goodies. Is it rediculous? Yes. Is it also clever as it gives Shredder an easy army of plausably deniable theives that he can pick the best out of to put in his elite that will be tirelessly loyal to him and him alone? Also yes.

So April being public about this stuff gets her attacked, which naturally leads to our heroes coming in, first in the shadows and later directly when April wont’ give up on the case and Shredder sends some ninjas to go shut her up.. which he does weirdly as the guy jsut slaps her and tells her to cut it out like he’s on a domestically abusive episode of Full House. Raph saves her, and we get the turtles origin.. though weirdly they cut it in half. We get the ooze portion but Splinter’s past with Saki, Saki’s murder of his master and his master’s partern Tang Shen is left for later in the film and the fact Shredder’s saki is treated as a big twist despite the fact the biggest audience for the film would be kids... and kids would’ve been familiar with the cartoon where the giant brain monster routinely screeches out saki at the shredder. Maybe Barron just thought he was an alcoholic I don’t know. It just would’ve made more sense to have it all at once and let the audeince put it together.

April becomes good friends with the turtles over a night of frozen pizza and camradrie, but the Splinters return home to find it ransacked, Splinter kidnapped by the foot, and are forced to Stay with april. Charles meanwhile tries to get April to backoff because he made a deal with the police to clear Danny’s record, without TELLING her any of this mind you, but I will save my rage on that little plot point for in a bit as Danny who he drug along sees the turtles and tells the Shredder.

So we get the return of the shredder arc as Raph goes through a window, our heroes fight valiantly, and Raph’s friend Casey who he met earlier shows up, the two having bonded as all true friends do.. by beating the shit out of each other ending with raph shouting DAMNNNNNNN really big and dramatically into the sky for some reason. The Turtles and friends escape with an injured raph from April’s burning second hand store. She had a second hand store it was poorly established and only there because she had it in the comics.

Our heroes retreat to a farm April’s grandma owned in Northampton, Massachutes, where Mirage was located at the time the original comics where they were exiled to the place were written and a location that has been a staple of the turtles ever since. The turtles slowly recover, lick their wounds, talk about who hooked up with who on gilligans island etc, before Leo connects with Splinter via meditation, who tells them to come back. Splinter also starts to connect with Danny and convinces him to swtich sides.. or at the very least squat in the boys old home.

The boys return home, find danny, and prepare, Danny goes back and ends up giving away the Turtles are home.. but the turtles are ready and in an awesome sequence kick the fuck out of the foot squad sent for them with some well prepared steam vents. Casey goes to get splinter since Danny told them and with Danny’s help, finds him, since Danny found out they were gonna kill him. Casey beats up Tatsu, shredder’s right hand man, and they get him out.

We get our final fight which is awesome up until the climax.. which is splinter casually tripping shredder with nunchucks and thier bloody history being kind of rushed and unsatsifying. Casey crushes shredder with a garbage truck, April gets her job back, more on that in a moment, she and casey hook up, and we end with the fucking awesome song T-U-R-T-L-E Power by partners in cryme. Seriously check it out it’s fucking triumphant.

youtube

The song is just good.. cheesy? Sure but that’s half the fun. It’s the gold standard for movie theme songs for them and stacks up handily with the various animated series themes.. all of which slap. Okay... ALMOST all of which slap. Fast Forwards is aggressively medicore, which is doubly suprising to me since 4kids was REALLY damn good with theme songs. It was one of the three things they were best at along with finding VERY talented voice actors and setting japan based works in america because merica dammit.

The plot is very solid: It skilfully packed half of eastman and laird’s run on TMNT into 90 mintues while adding things like April’s job at channel 9, the way the foot recurited kids etc. The plot flows well for hte most part and apart from one annoying subplot we’ll get to never has a moment that feel unecessary or dosen’t pay off later. And the stellar plot and fun pacing of it helps boilster the characters that do work... and help paper over the ones that are so thin the’yd fall down a grate...

Our Heroes, Villains and Annoying Middle Aged Guys:

Yeahhhh character is hit and miss here. Some are rather strong, others are the bare basics for the character their adapting and most are just to serve the plot but some work some don’t, So let’s talk about it starting with our boys:

Raph is the most fleshed out of the turtles, being the main focus of the first 2/3 of the film, and having his anger be part of what SHOULD be a character arc, learning to temper it. And while granted MOST TMNT properties do this, to the point that Rise Raph is so loveable in part because his boisterous bruiser big bro attitude is a refreshing break from the usual grumpus we get. But at the time this hadn’t been done in every version but the 87 cartoon, so exploring it was valid.. but despite saying this should be a thing htey just forget about it and the most plot relevance he gets is going thorugh a window. He dosen’t really get a resolution.. his arc just kind of stops dead for the final half and it’s one of the film’s weaker points, one I only just now noticed on this rewatch. He’s still the most entertaining.

Leo is the weakest of the turtles. He really lacks a personality here mostly just being leader and while his spirtual side is touched on, it’s mostly a plot device. He’s just kinda the leader because he was in the comics to the point Partners in Cryme called Raph the leader. His role in getting taken out by the foot was taken by Raph, so he just has.. nothing to do for most of the film other than gripe at raph ocasionally and say orders. He’s probably the worst Leo i’ve seen outside of Next Mutation. I prefice that because after watching Phelous’ review it’s VERY clear those four are the worst versions of the characters, and no personality is still better than either having your team do nothing or yelling at them as your personality. I chalk this up to the Mirage Leo, and the mirage turtles to a poit being kind of bland. Not TERRIBLE characters, especially for the time, but not nearly as fleshed out or individualized as they woudl be in other adpatations, and with most traits LEo DID have, like his badassery flat out gone, he’s just.. nothing here.

Mikey and Donnie are a double act here with both sharing a brain. Interestingly instead of his normal genius character, Donnie is Mikey’s best friend and the two simply trade jokes and schtick together. The two are interchangable.. but easily the best part of the film and a lot of the most memorable gags and lines, from Ninja Kick the Damn Rabbit! to “Do you like Penicllin on your pizza”, are from them. Thier there almost entirely as comic relief but it works, with both clealry being more modled ont he 87 cartoon turtles, a move that helps lighten the mood in darker moments. Their just genuinely charming and it’s intresting to see such a diffrent version of Donnie, and other incarnations, specifically the 2003 and Rise versions, would retain the sarcastic edge.

Splinter is splinter. That’s about it, he’s peformed well and the puppet is amazing but he gets kidnapped a half an hour in and outside of influcencing Denny, more on that in a moment, and finishing Shredder he dosen’t do much but spout exposition. He’s not bad or anything, but he’s essentially a rodent shaped plot device. He was also puppeted by Kevin CLash, aka the guy who does Elmo. So there you go.

April on the other hand.. is truly excellent. This might be my faviorite April. Judith’s april nicely blends the cartoon and mirage versions: She has the cartoons energy and job, but the comics sheer will and casual nature. Judith just oozes personality and her April is just a joy to watch, from her breezy chemistry filled interactions with the guys to her confrntation with Chief Sterns, knowing she’ll get thrown out by the asshole. She’s confident, and even when afraid dosen’t back down to her attackers and even helps out during the sewer ambush. I mean it’s a pot on the head but still it’s neat. She’s easily the best part of the flim and the most fleshed out of the cast. The worst I can say is they kinda shove her store from the comics, Second Time Around, in there for no other reason than it was in the comics: It dosen’t come up until it’s needed for the foot’s assault on her place. But overall.. she’s just fantastic to watch.

Speaking of fantastic to watch, Elias Koteas is fantastic as Casey. Seriously he’s only second to the 2003 version in my eyes, getting the concept of a testorone filled average guy who decided to just go out and hit people with sports equipment after watching too much A-Team.. I mean that part of it’s not in this version but it’s implied, just right. Like judith, Elias is just really funny to watch and his big scenes, showing up just in time during the foot assault on april’s place and his fight with Tatsu are some of the best parts of the film, the former taken directly from the comics. This version isn’t without problems: His friendship with Raph, his most endearing aspect and one that has been carried throughout eveyr version Casey’s important, with the only exception so far being rise and we have a movie to fix that, is absent here. HE does save the guy, but they don’t really bond or anything. In fact he disappears for about half an hour after his big fight with Raph. But... again he’s just so damn entertaining, down to his JOSEEEEEEEEEEE Conseco bats (There was a two for one sale!).

Shredder is just a LITTLE better than splinter, if only because his actor projects a true aura of menace and I feel this version had some influence on the pants crappingly terrifying 2003 version. And the idea of the foot recurting teenagers like I said is a good one: He gives them home and a cause, they give him plausably deniable backup. And his fight with the boys in the climax is really awesome... the conclusion sucks but otherwise h’es okay. Not the deepest villian, but he has enough presence to be enjoyable.

His right hand man Tatsu, whose been adapted ocasionally since this and reimaigned as Natsu in the IDW comics, a female version, is also fine. He’s your standard grimacing goon but has enough presence to work.

So that brings us to the penningtons. Charles, april’s boss at the station and his son Danny who’s joined the foot as he feels his dad dosen’t love him. Charles..is about as interesting and likeable as a dog turd and is the worst aspect of the film. No debate there, he just sucks. He sucks so hard he’s classified as a black hole. The film wants you to see him as a put upon wokring dad whose frustrated with his son’s increased moodiness, skipping school and crminal undertakings and just wants to help him and loves him deep down. The problem is his actor’s delivery instead of concerned.. is just pissed. He just seems pissy and upset about the whole thing and comes off like he’s only mad about Danny doing this because he’s embarassing him and not because you know, it’s bad. When confronting Danny about stealing, he dosen’t consider MAYBE he’s part of a gang or needs help, but just wonders “Why are you stealing when I give you stuff”. Because, Dipshit, sometimes kids do crimes not because they need the stuff but because they WANT to, and because they want to act the fuck out.

The most he does for the kid is agree to try and get April to back off the police when Cheif Sterns offers to let Danny go and not put him on record in exchange for it. The problem.. is this makes him even MORE unsympathetic. While I do get wanting to help your child, I do and it’s a sucky position... he again should be sympathetic.. but he handles the thing so badly it sucks. He just tells april to ease off, with no reason given, then fires her when she SHOCKINGLY dosen’t give up taking the guy whose refusing to take her hard work seriously or actually solve the crime wave problem to task for his shitty behavior as ANY person facing a shitty, corrput cop would. She just wants to hold him acountable and get him to actually do something. He clearly knows her on a personal level too as he talks about his issues with his son freely with her, something you don’t do with an employee unless their also a friend on some level.

He could have TOLD april what was going on. She’d be furious at Stern’s naked corrpution and prioritizing shutting her up over actually solving crimes.. and thus put at least some of that energy into shutting him down or finding a way around it, going to the papers or something like that. Even in 1990 pre-internet, there were ways to get around Sterns blackmail and expose him so someone who’d actually do the job could get the job. Instead he just comes off as a selfish coward who rather than try and fight the guy blatantly abusing his power and using Charles own son as barganing chip, goes along with it because it’s the easier option to simply bow to him instead of TRY and stop this. And it’s not like he’s even going after a beloved public figure or someone who could hide behind his rep: Sterns was blatantly failing a crime wave, April had called him out on his failrues and coverups multiple times. The public was against sterns.. finding out he tried to blackmail the media into shutting up about him would PROBABLY end him... I only say probably not because the public wouldn’t skewer him, but because police tend to escape consequences for blatantly murdering someone on a daily basis and Andrew Cumo is STILl mayor over in new york, the same city this movie takes place, 31 years later, depsite EVERYONE asking him to resign over a long history of sexual harassment and a more recent but still horrible history of hiding death numbers. I don’t doubt people being stupid enough to ignore this or the bilaws with cops being stacked enough for him to get away with it, but just because someone gets away with a crime dosen’t mean you shoudln’t try and go after them in the first place. Fuck. Charles. Pennington.

Danny on the other hand is FAR more interesting and I think gets way too much flack when it comes to this subplot. Unlike his dad, whose dead weight, Danny is intresting: He provides a POV character for the foot’s MO in the film of taking in wayward teens, and his character arc is pretty engaging, slowly realizing the foot dosen��t care and that hte turtles are the good guys. HIs actor does a great job and while not the biggest presence, he’s not a bad addition to clan hamaoto and I wish other adaptations would find a way to use him. The pull between doing the right thing and his found family is a good struggle. My only real issue with his plot is the moviies flawed aseop about family. It tries to contrast shredder and his using the kids blatnatly with Splinter and Charles really loving their sons. And it works with Splinter and the kids because despite being a tad strict, Splinter clearly loves his sons and works with them to help them. The problem is ENTIRELY with Charles and Danny. As I said Charles love comes off as transasctional: He either thinks he can buy it or just expects it because he shot a bunch of goop into Danny’s mom after two minutes of disapointment. It dosen’t work with them because neither option is good for Danny. His father is neglectful, chooses throwing his jounralistic integrity out the window over talking to his son or his best friend about another way, and abrasive. Danny is no saint, he does do crimes, but it’s clearly a result of a shitty upbringing and the shredder and co actually offeirng him the love he desperatly craves. Danny goes to the foot because his dad is bad at his job but the film never adresses that and just expects Danny to go back to his dad because the plot says so. Danny would HONESTLY be better off with Splinter. No really. Sure he’d have to live in the sewers.. but he did so for a few weeks in the course of the movie. He’s fine down there. Splitner actually cares about him and took an intrest to him and knows how to raise a child. Let him become the fifth turtle. An aseop about family is not a bad thing: Loaded subject that it can be given how many outright abusive families exist, i’m one of the lucky ones who dosen’t have that issue, family is an important thing and can be a source of comfort and support. But this film tells you you should love and respect someone who does not love, respect or value you because he spent a minute in your mom’s vagina and that’s not how family should work and is outright dangerous to kids in an abusive situation. Love the film otherwise but fuck this aseop skyhigh.

Final thoughts:

Overall though.. the film is bodacious. It’s funny, well paced, has an awesome cast, and outside of a certain bald asswipe... it’s a really good superhero film. Is it the best i’ve seen? Nope. Not even close and character wise most of them are as thin as a wet paper bag covered in ranch dressing. But it’s still a fun as hell with awesome corepgraphy, a killer soundtrack, seriously the soundtrack is damn excellent and only didn’t get it’s own section because I didn’t have enough to say and some of the best effects work i’ve seen in a film in the turtle suits. If you haven’t seen it I urge you to check it out: it’s a breezy 90 minutes, it’s on hbo max and it’s a shell of a time. Will I do the next film?

We’ll see how this one does like wise and such, but I will be doing the rise film whenever it comes out this year. So look for that and keep possesing turtle power my dudes. If you liked this review subscirbe for more, join my patreon to keep this blog a chugging, comission a review if you have more turtle stuff you want me to cover, and comment on this. What do you think of the movie, what are your thoughts on the review, what can I do better, what other turtle stuff would you like me to cover/ Let me know and i’ll see you at hte next rainbow.

#teenage mutant ninja turtles #teenage mutant ninja turtles 1990 #leonardo #raphael #donetello #michealangelo #casey jones #april o'neil #the shredder #oroku saki #new line cinema #golden harvest #film #90's movies #the 90's #partners in cryme #judith hoag

23 notes · View notes

urbancripple · 4 years

Link

I’ve updated my gear page and added more of my recent recommendations. I also fixed the shitty image formatting so stuff isn’t cut off :D

Each purchase made through those links helps support my site. So many of your have done that recently and it’s been a great help with keeping things running around here. I deeply appreciate it.

This article contains one or more Amazon Affiliate Links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Urban Cripple’s Wheelchair Gear and Accessories

If you want suggestions on what kind of gear you should get for your wheelchair, check out this list.

Wheelchair Tools

Every Day Carry (EDC)

In the Kitchen

Around the House

Bags and Carrying Cases

Food and Fuel

Wheelchair Tools

I don’t carry a ton of gear with me when I go out, but what I do have is super critical to staying safe and mobile while rolling through god‐knows‐what in the streets. Most of this stuff falls in the “Oh shit!” category. You won’t need it every day, but you’ll be glad you have it when you do.

Tekton Long Arm Ball End Hex Key Wrench Set

Most wheelchair components are held together with either with some kind of hex screw. If something goes wrong, you’re going to need a set of wrenches to fix it.

I like this particular set because it comes with both metric and standard wrenches and folds so it can lay flat in your bag or tool wrap.

Pedro’s Tire Levers

Don’t let their size fool you: these are great tire levers. What I love most about these things is the fact that they come in pairs and are designed to wrap around a spoke so you can keep one in place while using the other to remove the tire.

When not in use, they snap together and can easily be tossed in a bag or stashed under your chair.

PRO Bike CO2 Inflator

If you realize your tires are dangerously low after leaving the house or you pop a tube and need to reinflate the replacement, you’ll need a C02 inflator.

Make sure you always keep a couple of spare cartridges on you and remember to never store a fresh C02 cartridge in the inflator: it’ll just be flat by the time you need it.

Black And Decker ASI300 Air Station Inflator

For regular tire maintenance, I really love this air compressor. It’s powerful enough to fill a standard wheelchair tire but small enough to travel in a vehicle. It can even be powered by your car’s DC outlet.

Every Day Carry

This is the stuff I keep with me and use every day.

Foldable Phone Stand That Fits In Your Wallet

It’s a ridiculous piece of plastic and aluminum, but it fits in your wallet and actually works really well to hold your phone up. I use it when doing video calls with coworkers so I don’t have to move my laptop, open it up and plug in my wired headphones.

Harbinger Pro Non‐Wristwrap Weightlifting Gloves

By far, gloves are the most important piece of gear for your chair. City streets are super gross and full of hazards that can stain, cut, or bruise your hands. A good pair of gloves should offer you plenty of protection from hazards while allowing you to maintain your grip, dexterity, and the ability to use touch‐sensitive devices like a smartphone.

That’s why I love these weightlifting gloves from Harbinger. They have enough padding in the palms to protect from dirt, grime, and heat (gripping your tires while going down hill can burn your hands) while the fingerless design lets you keep your dexterity and use a smartphone.

Tactical Flashlight

I know we all usually use our phones when we need a flashlight, but I find a dedicated flashlight to be a lot more effective ( and a lot less expensive if you drop it.)

These flashlights are small, light, and crazy bright. They also come with various modes including strobe and S.O.S.

Contigo Extreme Vacuum Insulated Stainless Steel Travel Mug with Handle

The only way you can safely carry a hot beverage while pushing a wheelchair is by keeping it in an airtight container. I really like this mug because it’s insulated and has a clip. The clip is great because you can easily attach it to your bag or to the back of your chair (I use the backrest release bar). Because it seals so well, you don’t have to worry about it spilling.

Snap Lock Folding Pocket Knife

I like this knife because it’s small, sharp, and easy to carry. Just don’t accidentally leave it in your jeans for the TSA to find (true story).

AmazonBasics Lightning Cable

Fun fact: lightning cables are super cheap if you get them from anywhere except Apple.

Cocoon Grid‐IT Organizer

These things are great for taking all the small stuff that usually ends up rolling around in your bag and keeping it in one place.

Portable Charger Power Bank 22400mAh

Having your phone die is terrifying. This thing will charge your phone and tablet several times over. However, it does take a long time to charge the battery itself.

Slim Portable Charger Power Bank 10000mah

It won’t charge your device as fast or as many times, but it won’t take up nearly as much room in your bag as the other battery.

In the Kitchen

Cooking while everything that is boiling or on fire is at face‐level can be a bit daunting. Here’s some stuff that’ll make it safer and easier.

Meal Prep Containers: 3 Compartment with Lids, Food Containers

These meal prep containers are microwave/dishwasher safe and they stack. It’s a great way to prep meals and save yourself some time and energy.

Extra‐Large Silicone Freezing Tray with Lid

These trays are great for freezing stews and sauces and such. I do a lot of large batch cooking and these are waaay easier than trying to portion stuff out into ziplock bags. The lids make it easy to move it around one handed (what wheelchair user hasn’t gotten wet trying to refill an ice cube tray?)

Silicone Baking Mat

These things are a life saver in the kitchen. Basically, if you use them, you’ll never have to clean a baking sheet/pan ever again.

16 inch Kitchen Tongs

When sitting in a wheelchair and using the stove top, it can be really tough to reach both the temperature dials and anything sitting on the back burner. These super long tongs let you easily reach and turn the knobs on your stove and anything that might be sizzling away on your back burners.

Ove Glove

These things are machine washable and can withstand up to 540 degrees of temperature. They grip well and make it easy to get stuff in and out of the oven. In a pinch, they’ll even double as a makeshift pot holder.

OXO Steel Press & Pour Insulated Cocktail Shaker

If you’re looking for a cocktail shaker that doesn’t freeze your hands off, won’t burst open, and can be operated with one hand, you should get this one. I make a lot of cocktails at home and I really hate cocktail shakers. Your standard Boston style shaker has a tendency to break open on you if you don’t seal it right (and that means your chair gets covered in booze) and it’s a pain to open if you seal it too tightly. This cocktail shaker has a really straight‐forward design. The top is screw-on, it has a simple push button in the lid for pouring and sealing, and it can pour from any direction. I highly recommend it for folks who wanna mix drinks at home but don’t wanna risk wearing their beverage.

Around the House

This is the stuff I keep around specifically because it makes daily life easier for me when I’m at home.

Microfiber Cleaning Cloth

For folks trying to keep their place clean while avoiding using up too many cleaning wipes or paper towels, I’ve found that having a stack of cheap microfiber cloths on hand plus a mix of water and vinegar in a spray bottle really helps keep things sparkly while cutting down on waste.

Multi‐Position Heavy Duty Folding Hand Truck and Dolly

This dolly is great if you need to move something that’s too big or too heavy to carry on your lap. It can be configured in multiple ways and folds up easily for storage.

Retractable Dog Leash

Walking your dog with a standard leash can be tough if you’re in a wheelchair. I use a retractable dog leash with my dog so that I can easily adjust the amount of slack I need to keep her under control while not getting the leash tangled in my chair. In addition, the size of the handle lets me easily loop it through the buckle of my Grab‐It Pack, which means I can securely hold onto the dog while pushing my chair with both hands.

Bags and Carrying Cases

All of the various bags and slings I use to carry stuff when I’m out of the house.

13.3 Inch Sling Bag Riding Hiking Bag Single Shoulder Backpack

This bag is small and doesn’t have a ton of storage, but I wanted something that I could wear constantly and had just enough room to hold my backup charging cables and small tools so that I could go out without having to have as much physically strapped to me. If you need something with more storage, they have a bunch of different sizes that are meant to hold more stuff.

This isn’t the exact bag I use day‐to‐day but it is the correct style. I really like the sling style bags: they’re light enough to not restrict my movement and the single strap means it won’t shift around as I push my chair.

Food and Fuel

This is the stuff I carry with me in case I’m too busy to pack a proper meal.

ThinkThin High Protein Bars

It’s always a good idea to keep some kind of portable snack in your bag if you think you’re going to be out and about for an extended period of time. I like to keep a couple of these ThinkThin bars in my bag just in case I’m stuck between meal times. They don’t taste like death or cardboard and they’re not just a glorified candy bar.

#gear #disability #wheelchair #recommendations

126 notes · View notes

savnofilter · 4 years

Text

Official Callout Post (5 - Q&A)

TW: mentions of suicide, ephebophilia, grooming, pseudo racism (microaggression). toxic friendships, harassment towards minors, mental health, fandom discourse.

*DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT BECAUSE OF MY AGE OR SOCIAL MEDIA. THIS IS BECAUSE TOXICITY/TREATMENT. This post is not just minors. This is for the people from different ages 16-22 who feel like they did not have a voice by fellow BNHA writers.*

Important Topics:

Clearing last statements

Addressing my callouts

Alienated mental health

Fic stealing

BNHarem server regulation

Where is the proof that there are people not speaking up?

*10

*11

*12

*13

What’s wrong with aging up?

@mci-writing: There isn’t a problem with aging up in specific, but rather how you go about aging up the characters, especially in NSFW pieces. If you’re going to age the characters up, make it apparent that the characters are aged up rather than just slapping the 18+ label, whether it be in an offhand mention of living in a house of their own or maybe something small about being in college if dorms are such an integral part to the work in question.

“If the minors knew it was an 18+ space, why did they join?”

@mci-writing: Their server is a 16+ server, so they were invited and welcomed once they proved their ages. Many minors that joined their server saw it as an opportunity to meet new people and make friends, all while being able to interact with their favorite writers in the fandom.

If the discord discussion wasn't about harassing Lady-bakuhoe, why did it happen?

@mci-writing: The first discussion quite literally was a couple of people active in the fandom, mainly writers, venting about how hard it is to currently get your works out there and just how hard it is to properly get involved in the fandom without some form of help from a clique. No one in specific was named that time. The other discussion was Sav venting about how she was treated after a whack ass callout post was made and simply because a writer was mad that Sav ran her server the way Sav wanted to, which led to her elaborating on the situation (it then prompted other people’s responses, whose responses are fairly similar to how many of you reacted to Jo’s small “callout”).

What legal offences have they done if charged?

@savnofilter: Well since you guys like supporting people you think should be in jail, considering Lady-Bakuhoe has shared a minor’s face and age, the offense would be up to the parents in question. It's stated in laws that even if the minor is a felon, you do not have the rights to share such information without law/parent consent. Although I cannot find anything about age, sharing a minor's face comes with consequences.

- UK source: 1

- US source: 1

Charges will be:

Lawsuit: exposing minor information without parental consent.

*****

To put in perspective, the U.S and UK are basically flip flopped. In the U.S it is not against the law to groom, but in the UK it is. It is illegal to have relationships with minors in the U.S, while in the UK it is not.

For knowingly engaging sexually with a minor (DMs), you can also be trialed for having depictions of any picture/video of minors. (ex: students in school uniforms) or minors in sexual situations. Although having a sexual relationship with a 16 year-olds is permitted, consuming child pornography is not. Grooming is also outside of sexual abuse, you can groom anyone for any reason.

- UK source: 1

- US source: 1

Charges will be:

Misdemeanor: for knowingly engaging NSFW with minors, causing mental anguish.

Felony: for knowingly engaging NSFW with minors, causing mental anguish.

2 Years Prison: sexting any sort of NSFW content to a minor.

Registered Sex Offender: engaging sexually with minors (U.S).

*****

For the acts of gaslighting, you can be sentenced if proven with evidence.

- UK source: 1, 2

- U.S source: 1, 2, 3

Charges will be:

Misdemeanor: causing mental anguish, this is categorized as mental abuse.

Felony: causing mental anguish, this is categorized as mental abuse.

*****

Sharing false and hurtful posts about someone with intention to hurt someone's image constitutes cyberbullying. This includes false posts to make someone look bad and sending hate (whether you directed it or not).

For perspective, once again it is flip-flopped. The U.S has many states so there are not any direct laws against cyberbullying (in my state and my friends it is illegal), but you can categorize abusive behaviors exhibited online as a form of abuse. In the U.K it is illegal, grooming is considered being one of the offenses.

LBH and or any adult who participated in posting, sending hate, or anything that repeatedly tore our image down would be classified as a Verbal Adult Bully.

UK source: link

U.S source: link

Charges will be:

Lawsuit: defamation of character, harassment.

Misdemeanor: harassment, abuse.

1-2 years jail or fine: harassment, intimidation, or bullying.

12 months jail or fine: classified as stalking.

*****

You can categorize abusive behaviors exhibited online as a form of abuse. In the U.K it is illegal, grooming is considered being one of the offenses.

- UK source: link

- U.S source: link

Charges will be:

Lawsuit: defamation of character, harassment.

Misdemeanor: harassment, abuse.

1-2 years jail or fine: harassment, intimidation, or bullying.

12 months jail or fine: classified as stalking.

*****

Since you only promote 18+ blogs in your 16+ server, the people who run/host the server will be trialed for exposing minors to NSFW

UK source: link

U.S source: link

Charges will be:

Misdemeanor: exposing a minor to pornographic content.

Third degree felony: exposing a minor to pornographic content.

1-15 years jail: exposing a minor to pornographic content.

Fine: $1,000 - $10,000

Don't you (minors) know it's illegal to consume and produce erotica?

@savnofilter: As long as we (minors) don't go as far to engage (message privately) sexually with people who are 18+, it’s not illegal. Reblogging or commenting on a work both ways isn't illegal either 1, 2. It’s only illegal if you approach minors and send it to them personally. If it was illegal, porn websites wouldn’t even exist. If you’re concerned about minors reading your stuff, don’t put them in main tags.

Can't the person producing the content get arrested?

@savnofilter: To put it simply: No. You will not go to jail if a minor reads your smut. With the other way around, you won't go to jail reading a minor's smut either. The laws state that you can only go to jail if you send porn (video, art, pictures) to a minor or produce depictions of a minor in sexual acts.

Therefore if you do not approach a minor with such contents, you will not be trialed. If this was the case, there wouldn't be platforms such as PornHub and etc would not be able to run.

Do you have a problem with them writing the content that they do?

@savnofilter: No. If we did it would be hypocritical. It’s more of the personal jabs to alienate teens feel in the writing community. This means having to go out your way saying stuff like “fuck minors” “minors are stupid”. People like to shove down our throats that we want to go into “adult spaces”. Tumblr is an open site for 13+, the anime being a Shounen anime. Again, if you don’t want minors interacting with your stuff, keep it out of main tags.

What do we want from this post?

The main reason why I even decided to speak up is because I was tired of always talking about how toxic it is here and always being accused of starting drama to shut me up. Sure, call it “bitching” and “whining” but why should I take bullying because I have less followers and half someone’s age?

The double-standard that I’ve touched upon in CCC or even how small blogs are treated. Fandom is supposed to be fun, and it’s not okay to let things slide just to keep things “happy”. Stop intimidating and shutting down people who finally have a choice to talk about the things they have been through just because your favorite says so. Don’t campaign about listening to hurt peoples voices, then proceed to ignore and ridicule people who do it in your own environment.

I’ve had people come into my inbox and mock me for admitting to being mentally ill and say I’m doing this because I’m sick in the head, or call me a liar only because I spoke up. The BNHA fandom needs to stop the popularity mob mentality. Before you blindly someone, think to yourself: why? Stop giving toxic people passes because there is always a high chance in them not even caring about you. Don’t be a sheep, think for yourself. That’s what I want from this post. Even if people don’t believe me now, you can’t say I didn’t warn you.

Here is what a few of our members have had to say:

Continuation here: main post, one, two, three, four, ▸five◂.

#callout #tw grooming #tw toxic people #lady-bakuhoe #fandom discourse

97 notes · View notes

senotsuri · 3 years

Text

Way back when, I posted an image of an OC, who fairly recently got a full name (she only had a surname back then.) So, with Eliza’s name finally figured out, I realised I hadn’t actually given my overview of the game that spawned her; Champions of Vestroia.

Time to lose my mind, I guess.

Some fore-knowledge before we get into this.

I am, by all means, a legacy bakugan fan, not a reboot fan. I’ve only seen one double episode (the become-smaller-child episode, which was cute, and Outer Demons, which has a super good premise, but the execution is. something.) By all accounts, CoV is essentially my introduction to the world of the reboot, and I’ll come to this later.

I played both the first game (Bakugan Battle Brawlers, specifically the Wii edition), and the... third game (Defenders of the Core, shortened to DOTC, also for the Wii. The second game, for anyone curious, is Battle Trainer, a DS exclusive.) This will come up later, of course, but I want to point out these two as they’re basically my control group for the quality here (not for the battles though; different battle system and all.)

I am incredibly stay-at-home. A lot of people I know irl I don’t have contact with, and most of them don’t live in my city. This is only important when it comes to the protagonist and literally no one else in the game, but I thought I’d mention it anyway.

So the game begins with the character creator. This is pretty standard stuff, honestly. My one issue with it is just-- this is probably my fashion sense speaking, but the fashion in the game is very... for lack of a better term, naff. There aren’t many options that look good, personally speaking. This is ignoring the issues where the protagonist loses their name, mid conversation, or is referred to as if I chose the male option instead of the female option. These issues are likely just oversights, by all accounts, but talk about jarring.

The first time you see your character is where 3. comes in. The protagonist, no matter what you chose (I have two save files, in case there was a difference. There isn’t), will always be a football/soccer player. Are you one of many, many people who isn’t sporty, who is trying to play as themselves? Sorry, your character is sporty, and you can’t do anything about it.

In the legacy games, this was never really a problem; your character was never seen doing anything other than brawling and interacting with other characters. Whether they played sports, or stayed indoors and wrote fanfic, the game let you decide on that for your character, by not having them do either of those things: your character only battled, or snuck around in DOTC’s case.

Once you stop playing football, you get to run to your best friends, and I guarantee you, you won’t immediately guess who they are unless you somehow already knew.

I mentioned BBB and DOTC being my control group on quality. Bringing the character creator back into this, the NPCs are laughable in quality. Any character who has the same model as you (older child. There are only two other model types: adult, and younger child) will look like a remixed version of your character. Had it not been for some characters having special eye shapes, you could practically cosplay any character in the game, because they were made the same way you made your character.

This includes your two best friends.

You could easily make the same character (minus clothes) as one of your best friend characters, without knowing it until you saw them.

While, yes, BBB and DOTC had the characters from the legacy anime in them, the fact that your best friends are nigh indistinguishable from any other character in the area, because you could easily make any of them in the character creator, isn’t... great.

Speaking of that. Characterisation is questionable, to say the least. Whatever bakugan you have in your first slot will answer to you the same as any other bakugan you have in your first slot. If you started off with Howlkor in the front of your party, and you replaced him with, say, Barbetra, Barbetra will act the exact same as Howlkor did, and it’s really something.

There’s only (?) Armoured Alliance bakugan in the game, other than Dragonoid, Pegatrix, Trox, Hydorous, Nillious, and the afforementioned Howlkor. That’s a small roster, by all accounts, so having varied dialogue depending on the bakugan would make sense.

The characterisation of the other characters is also a little funky in places. Your best friends don’t brawl, and I honestly forgot about them for a portion of the game. The tournament brawlers are practically as faceless as the villain minions, and the villains- oh the villains...

Preston. I don’t like Preston, at all. He’s a villain from the moment you see him, and the whole “try to find Preston” section in Helena Heights makes me want to punch someone. When you fight him in the Parasol HQ, his dad being the CEO, it’s fairly clear that Preston is little more than a tool for him. Sometime later, you fight Preston again, this time as the final tournament’s final battle, and he’s laughably weak compared to the other challengers. Remember, this kid fights you with Leonidas.

You’d think Leo would be good, but I’ll get into the butchering that happened to my death dragon later.

Anyhow, he fights you, assuming his dad will enjoy him defeating you. With the power of you’re the player character, you beat him, he hands all of his bakugan to you, and gives up on brawling for good. Kinda.

The next time you see him... hoo boy. In Old Town, on the way to defeat dear detestable dad, you come across Preston. He offers you help, and when player character is understandably suspicious, Preston complains that... one of his toys was taken away because you beat him, and now he wants Revenge On Dad.

I wish I was joking. His revenge, by helping you defeat his dad, isn’t because he’s obviously neglected by his dad (company taking priority over him, the CEO’s son), and then is used as a minion to try and get rid of you. It’s not out of bitter feelings because his dad doesn’t care about him, no, it’s because his dad took his ball away.

What’s worse is how player character reacts: “Oh! :) You’ve learned that bakugan aren’t just tools! :) Yes you can help me, despite the fact that you learning this sounds less than genuine and definitely not last minute! :)”

This is a level of stupidity I’ve only seen in DOTC Mira when Spectra tricks her into giving him Drago. He’s literally sulking and moping about over his ball, and then he sees the player character, immediately being manipulative so that player character can take down his dad for him.

Leonidas also forgives him, and has the same reaction as the player character.

Speaking of Leonidas! I think everyone’s been excited for Leonidas in general - we all love a shark headed death dragon, and we wanted one in the reboot for ages.

I refuse to call reboot Leonidas Leonidas. This is like the Shun Kazami debacle, but one I’m substantially more angry about.

Leonidas, in BBB, was untrusting of everything, wanted to throw down with everything in sight, had no fear of anything because “I don’t fear weak [humans]”, and literally came from hell. He eventually grew to trust you and others, to calm down and enjoy himself at his own pace, and was willing to have help from others, showing anyone around him that his origins aren’t the be all and end all about him.

Leonidas, in CoV, is immediately trusting of the first human who showed a hint of kindness, has a weakness to all attacks in the game, comes from Vestroia (not the Doom Dimension), and forgives the human who threw him away when he didn’t win the battle against you for him.

Ignoring the fact that Leonidas just doesn’t look good in CoV, I’d say he got bastardised. That’s not Leonidas, it’s just a dragon with the same name.

The main villain is the CEO of Parasol, an energy company that, assumedly, used to use solar power. Upon finding out that bakugan battles give off incredible levels of power, they turned to using bakugan, forced to battle, to generate power. These guys literally dug into someone’s house to try and get Leonidas. They’re evil.

On the topic of the battling for power generation; this has a decay effect on Vestroia, as it happens, as battling energy would usually go back into Vestroia, which would be recycled and reused.

The CEO doesn’t bend the knee to you until you break him, which is undoubtedly nice for a villain; I was honestly expecting him to give up, but he doesn’t. You beat him into a corner.

But as my introduction to the world of BP, through CoV, is lackluster at best. Obviously the game is meant for those who have seen the reboot, and don’t mind being completely disconnected from the story, because CoV is self contained, and Dan only shows up to be the tutorial giver (as a jpg, no less).

From what the game tells me about the setting; bakugan are often exploited by adults, bakugan do not like adults because of this, but can’t tell when a human child is manipulating them, unless another child removes them from that situation (the lack of agency here is somehow worse than in the legacy series, who knew).

Despite bakugan being around for 18 years in the setting, no one seems to be aware that they’re living beings, other than the main charcter, as if BP humans are equivalent to Legacy’s Vestals. I was already aware of Vestroia and Earth sharing a location in space, but the fact that drilling deep enough causes bakugan to appear on Earth seems... really weird? Schrödinger’s Bakugan Summoning Pit, but they exist on every digging site possible. Bonus points to all bakugan being able to speak, and they do speak a lot, but only to the player and whoever is around the player in a cutscene.

I’m missing a lot of things, such as battle items being the worst sometimes, I’m aware, but at this point I’m tired of rambling, so let me end off in a comparison.

CoV has, in my opinion, the same replayability levels as Pokemon Shield; I couldn’t replay either game to the end, and I wouldn’t recommend either to anyone unless they were desperate for a new game to play, and had nothing else to chose.

#Bakugan #CoV #Bakugan Champions of vestroia #I had Feelings today #I give CoV a 4/10. personally #I think me being a legacy fan doesn't help it. but I don't think any of those biases actually held the game back?#Shoutout to the one kid in Oldtown who says something about the state of the economy. and makes the player character enter a mild panic #the kid is like. 6. the player character is maybe twice their age #The kid says it with a smug face too I wish I was making this up #I think his name is Rusty? I could be wrong #Bonus: I don't think Player Character has a house #There isn't a single house you can enter. not even one labelled as yours. all you have is your hideout. which has a clothes rack??#I'm almost convinced that's exactly where they live and that's it #Extra bonus to the ventus centipod you find when picking a flower. a flower that gets a guy to quit his job on the spot without a care.#sir. sir where is your sense of responsibility. sir--#Also it's like. half one in the morning--

7 notes · View notes

kustovshik · 4 years

Text

Talking.

This post is informative in connection with a dispute that one of the parties decided to make absurd. If you don't want to get involved, just skip it. I don't force anyone to look into it or read it.

Kust is in touch. As many people have noticed, there was a small(not small now) conflict between me and a couple of other people, which could have already been eliminated, but was brought to total clowning. Names/nicknames named in this post will not be in order to avoid any negative towards those people. Also, no correspondence will be shown here, although they will be mentioned. If someone asks , I'm ready to go and personally collect all the screenshots of the two conversations, without losing any moments.

As a person in some way responsible for the current situation, I have a desire to illuminate everything from the side of my vision of things.

The conflict conditionally began three days ago. Let's call the person who initially had a small argument with me a certain person "A".

Well. in March. March 24th. We can assume that almost 5 months ago I published a post: https://kustovshik.tumblr.com/post/613504425335586816/i-want-to-be-in-fiars-stomach-he-looks-like-a

Many people remember it, I hope. I'll attach an old screenshot here just in case.

The whole conflict initially started because of the double meaning of the context behind the work itself. The problem, I was told, was the tags. Namely, in the tag highlighted in the screenshot above: ‘safe vore(or is it?)’.

This tag was originally put up there not because I didn't know what type of vore to call it, but specifically so that people themselves would sit and think: what do they want to see in my drawing. Simply put, a drawing with an open context. And it seems like no one has had any problems with it for few months.

That's what person A didn't like. I was told in a very unpleasant way for me personally that the person was very offended by this use of tags. And other problems with how they don't like 'fatal vore'. It was also suggested to me that I don't know about how fatal can be quite a painful experience for some.

I admit. My answer was quite abrupt. I can't deny it, and I won't, because that's the kind of person I am. My language is harsh on words and expressions. Instead of a thousand words and a selection of expressions, I usually tell people everything openly, or I am ready to openly indicate that something is wrong. Also, I fully admit that I have problems controlling my emotions, which makes it difficult for me to establish contact with strangers. I grew up in a different mindset, which is why I have a different view of many things. It's like putting two people who know the same language, but from different parts of the world, next to each other and forcing them to express their position on some moral principles or other things, and then wonder why their answers are different. A very exaggerated and crude comparison, but that how it looks like.

Why did I respond harshly? I am a rather rude person, and I do not like when people come to me in private messages, starting to talk about how bad they are feeling, because of things that can be safely ignored or blocked by them, so that there are no problems.

My first fatal mistake was when I decided to answer to "A". Afterwards, I talked to a couple of my friends and got cold feet. And then I apologized, trying to come to some compromise, adding the tag 'open ending' so that no one would be confused. But it seems that this was not enough, because “A” continued to say how it’s bad from what she found, even if not quite fatal stuff. Refusing to compromise in any way, as I suggested.

After that, we parted with apologies to each other, and neither of us wrote to each other again. I honestly thought it was over.

Now, before I go on to the man who has been driving me mad for the past two days, I will make a pure assumption and try to explain my indignation in a different way...

Out of human interest, I went through the 'safe vore' tag. Noted an interesting feature. Both tags had quite a lot of posts there. Namely, tags are 'safe vore' AND 'fatal vore'. Why did my post cause the problem? Have no idea.

Then another point became incomprehensible to me. How did a person get to this post at all? It would be difficult to find it through search, but you can: there is a lot of content by tag. I flipped the feed down from the second account for a long time and didn't come across my own post.

Then, in my little investigation, I looked into Tumblr's alerts. Likes, reblogs, well, you understand in short. And noticed it.

This is the first appearance of "A" in my notifications.

Hence, I dare to assume that "A" came across one of the reblogs of this post: https://kustovshik.tumblr.com/post/616227708116025344/a-new-player-has-joined-the-game And then "A" went to my blog, along the way ignoring the description specially written for such people at the very top of the blog, and came across my two-meaning post.

But after that, I had a rhetorical question: Why go to the blog of a person who has this written in the description, and hope that there will not be a fatal vore?

Of course, this theory is based only on my assumptions. But I think this scenario is quite real.

Thus, we can say that I have every right to be angry at the indignation expressed in my direction, because it is not my fault that the person ignored my preferences, scrolled down my blog page and started complaining.

Back to reality.

As you can understand, " A " shared our conversation with their friend, who the next day suddenly came to me with a long message about his position, offering help that was not needed.

Even then, I began to suspect that this person(let's call him "B") was somehow connected with "A". Moreover, the reason for the visit was the same for both of them.

I have already mentioned that I am an irritable and rather rude person. I was already stressed enough by the appearance of "A" and the consequences of my reflections that occurred after what I thought was an end to the conflict. And the repeated mention of the situation has already infuriated me.

I fully admit that I reacted very sharply to the "B" message. I had reasons for this that the other side chose not to consider.

Well. After receiving the message I gave sharp response expressing extreme dissatisfaction, but without insults to "B". Was there passive-aggressive speech? Yes. Were words said that I am not obliged to monitor the health of people who do not concern me? Yes. Do I have the right to think so? Yes. Does this fall under the moral code? It depends on the person's personal worldview.

Yes, I was rude due to the fact that on the second day I was exhausted and angry about this situation. I wanted to end this conflict and repeatedly asked both of them to block me and remain neutral. In addition, I tried to somehow explain that we are people of different mentalities and grew up with different life standards, so in this situation we see this conflict differently. Yes, in a rough way, but I tried to explain it.

I received a ton of direct insults, was accused of narcissism and high self-esteem, as well as refusing to take care of other people's problems. In addition, I received lines like, quote: "...but let me see you talk like you did to me or anyone else simply trying to converse with you over a serious topic and I will not hesitate to have your content and eventually your account removed from this site.".

Isn't this a direct threat?

I understand that passive-aggressive speech itself can offend someone. But you can't call it an insult. Passive-aggression is a hidden way of expressing negative feelings and emotions to a person. This is not an insult. But, Yes, I admit that this is a very harsh and rude way of communicating.

That's just after such an exchange of pleasantries, I snapped. 3 days of unquenchable conflict, when one side refused to listen to the other, at the same time. There were attempts on my part to end the conflict. There was one repeated request to block and disperse, so as not to inflame everything to the point of absurdity.

"Want to stay safe with your own preferences? "Please, God, don't touch me, that's all. Block me already and we will live in peace. "- This was the message of my answers. It's sad, but instead of just ending the conflict, I got the brand of a person with a capitalist mindset, the brand of a bitch-whiner, and other other charms.

And I swear that I was ready to just leave all this and stop responding to such outbursts in my direction, banal blocking "B", if they can’t themselves do it.

As here I get a notification with a post where this person changed my art / tags and basically uploaded the changed image to his blog, hiding behind good intentions. "B" did not receive permission for such actions. Even with an indication of authorship. I am most outraged by such actions at the moment.

Better look on the two images compared to each other.

And after that, everyone wants me to try to understand how bad I was and how poor they are, that from a simple argument that could have ended without even starting, it turned into an absurd clowning with offended people, insults and changing someone else's drawings and whole character reaction. Just a note. Fiar is not so nice, he’s a wild monster leech and he just grumbles about everything as much as he don’t understands why some people willing to let him eat them. He’ll never say something as “I’ll keep you safe”.

There it is. The comedy of a three days.

This post is for informational purposes only. Namely, how I see this situation.

All I want now is for "B" to delete the post, and for both sides to banal block each other, so that we never meet again.

I refuse to apologize to "B" for their latest act of outraging my drawing by completely distorting the meaning from a neutral drawing to something that only "B" and their friend like. In conclusion I can say, that I do not call myself a good one in that confrontation. I did some terrible mistakes while talking to both of those people. But it’s not only I’m here being on the bad side. People are not black and white.

After this I’ll not respond to any of the continuation of that conflict anymore. I’m tired of this.

#long post #Kust talking #trigger warning

57 notes · View notes

lavenderek · 3 years

Note

So you're saying you don't think "underage" fic is gross. Is that what youre saying?

well, no. yuck. what i’m saying is, what exactly and specifically do we want to happen?

there should not be explicit fic about underage characters, got it. so what age can they not be under? 18? 16? what country’s laws regarding the age of consent do we prioritize? like, i think it’s gross that the age of consent is 16 in some places, but i’m an american, so i would, wouldn’t i? so ok, what if we hedged it a bit and put the age as like, 14? that way it’s not little kids, it’s all teenagers. but no, gross, 14-year-olds are children. fun fact: so are 16-year-olds. they are also children.

what about fic about two teenagers having a consensual encounter? should all romantic or sexual fic have to be about adults only? your answer to this may very well be “yes,” and that’s completely valid. a teenager writing fic might disagree. somebody who’s a big fan of a show that’s about a bunch of teenagers might disagree. should there be an adults-only section on the site? there’s already a “stop, you have to be 18″ box to check before you can access explicit fic, so how do we verify a user’s age? they can just lie about their age and click through anyway. you have to be 18 to make a youtube account and i’ve had one since i was 13. i remember very deliberately choosing a new birth year when it asked for my birthdate.

then you get to slightly greyer areas like large age gaps, or heavy role play between consenting adults. i have absolutely witnessed fic that’s clearly written to be CP, but it’s tagged as age play. so like, for all intents and purposes this is CP, but if you roll in like “hey, this is fucked up,” they can be like, “oh, so you read this picturing actual children, sicko?? you have a problem with two adults doing shit in the bedroom??? how dare you!!! don’t like don’t read!!!”

it’s kind of like on porn sites, how they make like nasty inc*st stuff but call it “stepmom” or whatever, like oh, they’re not actually related! sure, joseph, thanks for covering all your bases

so we can’t ban kinks. or can we? should we limit depictions of serious addictions or domestic abuse too? torture, or even body horror? these are generally accepted to be dark content.

i’m not trying to engage in whataboutism, i’m naming actual, relevant questions about shit that’s disturbing in real life (no offense to kink people who follow codes of consent and conduct) and can be incredibly upsetting to encounter online. shit that i can’t imagine wanting to read, let alone write.

these are the questions that we, you, i, people pro-a*3 and people anti-a*3, are all asking, and not a single one of us can or should answer them unilaterally.

so it’s like, oh, okay, so there should be no oversight at all? should there be no rules? no, obviously, that would be horrible, i don’t trust any of these fuckers to conduct themselves civilly. so there should be some rules, but not too many rules. that’s what we have now, and clearly the way things are now isn’t working because a lot of users are reasonably very upset.

should there be a voting system, and rules are set by a popular vote? should certain words be flagged and you can’t post the fic with that word in it? should there be a thing where when you post a fic, you have to select the ages of each character and that’s listed at the top of the fic? what if they age during the fic? should there be a flagging function, where you report someone for not using sufficient tags? users will find workarounds for all of this. you know they will. so mods will have to be very specific about the rules and introduce, like, a vetting system for it. which is a lot more manpower and a lot more chances for subjective judgments.

all of the above is why it operates on a tagging system instead. i’m gonna be real, i only go on a*3 to read comments on my own shit lmao, and even when i did go on there more often i never went in the tags searching for fic. so is there a blacklist function? is there a flagging function?

if there is a flagging function, maybe they make it so that if the flagged user has violated the rules, their account is suspended and their fic made private for the duration and until they add necessary tags.

cool, a compromise. but uh-oh, it turns out Mod A agrees that this fic is n*ncon, but Mod B thinks it’s just vague, not n*nconsensual, and doesn’t feel comfortable banning the fic. or it turns out User didn’t post anything flaggable, they were reported by somebody who is targeting them for some reason, or by someone who is more stringent about n*ncon than somebody else would be, like, it’s gotta be enthusiastic and verbal consent or else it’s skirting the edges too much.

it’s like, we’ve already witnessed censorship (please take this word usage gently, i know it’s touchy but it’s the word to use here) being a problem here on tumblr with their stupid nipple ban. there’s a double standard regarding whose nipples are explicit and whose are kosher for public consumption. people have to appeal their shit getting flagged and sometimes nothing gets fixed regardless. i’m sure other people are pleased that there’s less of a chance of them accidentally scrolling past a picture of a hard dick at work.

so you get it, this is a problem that’s more complicated than “all of x should be banned and if you post it there’s something wrong with you,” a belief you’re more than entitled to hold but can’t base, like, fanfic legislation off of. you get it you get it.

you get it, but like, what is the fucking deal with those “fandom moms” who go off on soliloquies about the days of old or whatever the fuck whenever this topic comes up? what about the weirdos who are like, “what’s next, banning gay fic????” yeah, if we allow gay marriage you can marry a tree, that’s how it works, thanks tiffany.

but no, the reason they do this is NOT that they think lgbtq content is comparable in any way to CP. the reason they do this is that this exact problem has taken place on every site that has ever hosted fic. and many previous sites did think lgbtq content was comparable to CP. it was categorized as adult content and hidden.

that’s why a*3 exists in the first place. it was to avoid godmodding and absolutism. it’s supposed to be more or less self-governed. i don’t want there to be CP on a*3 any more than you do, but i also don’t trust randos to decide what is and isn’t acceptable content. this topic is not new.

i’m in support of stronger government regulation in real life because it can be argued that certain actions and systems violate human rights. everybody deserves food and shelter, for example. the same can’t be argued in this case because some creep writing CP doesn’t violate my rights. i find it offensive and i don’t think they should be writing it, but my right to click the back button is intact. there is no institution making it impossible or even difficult for me to not read fanfiction. the creep could just as reasonably argue that their right to post what they want is being affected.

why is this response so long? is it because i can’t shut up? yes, but also because this is a complex issue and that’s why nobody has taken significant action on it.

people are also big mad.

i’ve never understood this impulse to see somebody not doing a thing you want them to do and assume it’s out of malice or incompetence, anyway. i don’t know anybody who volunteers for a*3 but it’s my assumption that given the choice to have us all pissed at them, or have us all not pissed at them, they would choose to have us not be pissed at them. it just seems like the reasonable reaction to have. and like, i’d be pretty shocked to part the kimono and find out they’re all CP-loving gargoyles and a*3 actually stands for A lot Of child abus3. that is the reason i have not been like, “fuck a*3.” because what are they supposed to do, you know?

there’s no simple or inarguably morally right solution here. the princess is in another castle. just post fic on tumblr, i guess? make another hosting site that’s exactly like a*3 but romantic characters can only be like, 21?

i actually think the legal age in the US should be raised to 21, not joking. your brain literally and biologically isn’t finished developing at 18. teenagers lack the world experience to make decisions that adults make.

somewhere there is an 18-year-old or a person who moved out and became self sufficient at 18 who hates this sentiment. there’s a teenager in an abusive home who would be intensely demoralized by the prospect of having to remain beholden to these people for three more years.

and there’s a parent who is relieved to know that their kid can’t be preyed on by army recruiters for three more years. there’s a person who got into a car crash with a teenager who misjudged whether or not they could make a turn who’s like, yeah, she could probably have benefited from a few more years.

nothing is as simple as it should be. i agree with you, but i’m not willing to pass blanket judgments with regards to actions that should be taken. and honestly, given how little i actually go on the site, i don’t even have a dog in this fight. so all my opinions on it are moot anyway.

(side note, if you are in an abusive home and you can’t make your own bank account, or if your bank account is monitored by your abusive parents, maybe try venmo? you can get a debit card that pulls directly from your venmo balance. a surprising number of places accept venmo payments, and this way you can save up money in secret.)

anyway uhhhhh seeya

#who is this even #haters #long post #please DO NOT REBLOG

8 notes · View notes